


Postscript

by Derry Rain (smakibbfb)



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:28:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28367667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smakibbfb/pseuds/Derry%20Rain
Summary: Sophia Cracroft, in later days.For Terror Bingo promptPunished, as a Boy.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 11
Collections: The Terror Bingo





	Postscript

As heavy as the door is, it does not, cannot mask their laughter. Sophia feels bile rise in her throat again and she clenches her fists in her dress. Beside her, her aunt remains, stoic and tall, but she can see the tightness of her jaw, the dip of her shoulders; Lady Jane is feeling this, just as much as she. The hope that she clings to, that she is not showing all her inner turmoil, is shattered when her aunt turns to her with kind eyes. Sophia wants to run; her head rings with the threat of sympathy and she does not know if she can bear it.

“It’s nothing,” she says, to Lady Jane’s enquiry.

“It’s very wet upon your cheeks to be nothing.”

She’s surprised to realise that she is crying. Sophia cannot remember the last time she cried. She reaches a hand up and touches-

Her pillow is wet. Strange. Sophia stretches out, frowning, chasing the last of her dream. She remembers something about a woman, and a hall, but nothing more than that. Her fingers touch the damp fabric with something akin to wonder. 

It is still dark outside, but she knows she will not fall asleep again. More and more often these days, she wakes before the sun, to a home that will not begin to stir for hours yet. She does not bother parting the drapes; there is nothing outside to see. 

Her skin shivers in the cold night breeze and she pulls her bedcovers a little closer around herself. She stares into the darkness, unmoving. 

A woman, and a hall, and a tear upon her cheek.

The memory flashes back to her, unbidden, and the wet on the pillow begins to make more sense. She has not cried waking since that time, and it has been years now. Lady Jane has not yet given up on finding news of her husband; Sophia is less certain. Still, she holds on to her aunt’s faith in lieu of her own and her lips still know how to pray for the life of Francis Crozier. She prays now, in the dark, and hopes that wherever God may be keeping him, he is kept safe, that he is kept whole, that he is kept loved. She does not pray that he lives.

With quiet, slow movements, she slides out of bed and pulls her dressing gown around her shoulders. The effort at silence is unnecessary, she knows, for her aunt is a heavy sleeper, and increasingly deaf these days, but still she retains something of her old habits, and when she leaves her bedroom and pads down the halls past Lady Jane’s bedroom, she holds her breath much like she had done as a child, passing by the rooms of her guardians to sneak away. 

She knows the way to her uncle’s old study by heart, does not need lamps lit to guide her now. Biting her teeth to her lip so hard that she can taste copper on her tongue, Sophia opens the door, flinching at the creak of it. She slips through as soon as it is wide enough to take her, and pushes it to with a gentle click.

With memory alone, she feels her way to the candles, and lights one, two, a line of them on the shelf above the fireplace. It gives the room a ghostly air, she thinks, and wishes that she had not read quite so many of Mr. Dickens’ tales. She can almost imagine her uncle sitting in that old chair, head bowed over papers, looking up to greet her with a smile.

It is Sophia’s chair now, she supposes, and she sits down in it, the leather creaking as she does so. She sits back, lays her cheek upon its back for a moment and breathes in slowly, carefully. Ink, paper, dust, leather, polish, such mundane scents to surround such an extraordinary man. She sits up, and reaches again for the papers that are piled neatly before her.

The manuscript, she has been working on for some time. Her aunt has asked to read it often, but Sophia does not let her. Not that Lady Jane knows. Her niece provides her dutifully with pages of history, record, stories of her uncle and their lives. She does not know about the second copy, the copy that Sophia keeps for her own, the fragments of memory and truth that she must write down, lest it burn her to keep it all inside.

It is those pages Sophia rereads now. It is not a diary, but it feels somehow like a confession. Her own face stares up back at her from the curl of her hand upon her page, and she cannot help the flush of guilt, shame, sorrow that flickers through her. Dear God, how she wishes-

She dips her pen in the ink pot again, and pulls a fresh sheet of paper onto the desk. 


End file.
